Godox Flashes Not Firing at Slow Shutter Speeds (below 500)

[Danny Bates]

Is anyone else having this problem?

My XT2 works beautifully with my Godox flashes (two AD200s and one AD600) when my shutter speed is 500 or higher. But if I drop the shutter speed below 500, the flashes stop firing.

I'm using the Godox XPro-F transmitter.

So what I'm really wanting is "Low Speed Sync" so I can use my Godox flashes at speeds like 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, etc.

Why I do not suspect the transmitter or flashes

• I can press the test button on the transmitter and the flashes fire
• I can put the same transmitter on my X100s and shoot at any shutter speed and the flashes fire successfully

This makes the XT2 my prime suspect.

Under the flash function setting menu, I do have Sync Mode set to AUTO FP(HSS) but I've tried the other settings with no success either (and didn't expect those to help anyway).

I am in single shot mode and not using bracketing or multi-exposure features.

And it doesn't matter if I manually turn off HSS via the menus on the flash units.

Do you have any suggestions I can try next?

Can you see if you are able to shoot and sync at 1/60 using your XT2 and Godox transmitter and flashes?

Any help or suggestions will be thoroughly appreciated!

[fireman1961]

what does "below 500" mean?

[itchy shutter finger]

Is the camera in manual mode?

Is HSS turned off on both the camera menu and the flash menu?

Is the firmare up to date? I recall one of the X-T2 updates improved radio flash control.

Is the flash trigger firmware up to date? 

 

It occurs to me that when the flash is in HSS, it is expecting to flash at lower power multiple times....I don't know why this would affect only one camera, but I'm still thinking...........  

Edited January 29, 2020 by itchy shutter finger

[Danny Bates]

3 hours ago, fireman1961 said:

what does "below 500" mean?

1/500th of a second, shutter speed

[Danny Bates]

I called Fujifilm XT2 support and they answered within 2 rings and were most incredibly helpful!

After about 30 minutes of troubleshooting, we discovered my mechanical shutter was going bad - specifically the second curtain. While I'm not glad there's a problem, I'm glad to know what it is. I'll be sending the body to them for repair, which should take about 2.5 weeks. I'm very happy with that.

[fireman1961]

On 1/29/2020 at 9:28 PM, Danny Bates said:

1/500th of a second, shutter speed

so below 1/500th is 1/1000th?

or if you understand what I understand: 1/250th is slower. But at 1/250th or 1/125 shutter speed, you will not need high speed sync? And please let me tell you that from the flah point of view, HSS operation is pure stress. It has to swich on / off / on / off at a very high frequency for at least 1/125th of a second; exactly: all the time the open curtain slot needs to travel across the sensor. If you use - say 1/30 - shutter speed, it's about 4 times longer! That's not easy to implement because of energy issues - you need a bigger capacitor, you must figure out how to get the energy from a huge capacitor to the flash bulb, and you must dissipate a lot of energy in your cooling system!

[Vinícius Cruz]

Friend I have the same problem as you managed to solve?

[Danny Bates]

22 hours ago, Vinícius Cruz said:

Friend I have the same problem as you managed to solve?

I can't say I solved it. I can only say I trust what the Fuji technician told me. It makes sense to me that the mechanical shutter was the cause. I just now packaged the camera body to be returned. So it will probably be 3 or 4 weeks before I can confirm that the mechanical shutter was the problem.

If you want to do the same test he had me do:

• set your ISO to 6400
• set your shutter speed to 1/8000
• set your aperture to f/2.8
• set your shutter type to mechanical
• take a photo of a low contrast subject, such as a gray wall with something off to the right or left of the frame
• now set your shutter type to electronic
• take another photo of that same subject, using the same composition

If the photo taken with the mechanical shutter was a lot lighter than the other, this suggests your mechanical shutter is failing. Otherwise, the two photos would have the same exposure.

I've attached the results from my test.

 

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Edited February 8, 2020 by Danny Bates